As digital screens take over most of our free time, why not use them as a medium to stress less, sleep more, and feel better? Enter apps like Headspace and Calm, which are becoming gurus to millions coping with stressful lives.
Millions of people are going through stressful times amid the daily chaos of long working hours, worsening commutes, deadly air pollution, and several health scares post-pandemic. Many of them are searching for ways to ensure their mental and physical well-being. As digital screens take over most of our free time, why not use the same screen as a booster to stress less, sleep more, and feel better?
Digital apps in the mental wellness space are promising to be effective tools for individuals and therapists alike. Several Americans have begun meditating to manage stress, reduce anxiety, and cultivate peace of mind. Besides, there are a plethora of studies documenting other less-known mindfulness meditation benefits, which can have a positive impact on mental, physical, and emotional health.
The app stores are full of so-called stress relief and meditation apps. With over 10,000 apps on Play stores, ranging from digital therapeutics to provider listing platforms, the challenge lies in choosing the right one for you.
Meet Headspace: Mental health coaching
Headspace provides evidence-based meditation and mindfulness tools, mental health coaching, therapy, and psychiatry to help you create life-changing habits to support mental health and find a healthier, happier you. The app with a library of over 500 meditation sessions is currently being used in 200 countries and regions worldwide and has touched over 100 million lives with over 70 million downloads.
Using evidence-based interventions and technology and a human-centered approach to care, Headspace supports millions of workers worldwide with accessible and affordable mental health services. More than 4,000 enterprise and health plan clients have partnered with Headspace to provide employees and their dependents access to mindfulness and meditation tools, text-based behavioral health coaching, therapy, and employee assistance program (EAP) services.
Headspace provides evidence-based meditation and mindfulness tools, mental health coaching, therapy, and psychiatry to help you create life-changing habits to support mental health and find a healthier, happier you.
How to fit a 10-minute meditation into your day
After a long day, intentionally spending time with our mind — specifically for 10 minutes — may feel useless, unnecessary, or even scary. These are normal feelings to have. But a 10-minute meditation can make all the difference in our lives, according to Headspace. When we dedicate 10 minutes each day to meditate — the same amount of time it takes to shower and get dressed for the day — we’re developing the ability to be present and less caught up in stressful, busy, overwhelming thoughts.
In fact, one study shows that just one session of Headspace can reduce mind-wandering by 15 percent.
Besides guided exercises to help you build your practice, they have other content to help you get familiar with meditation and mindfulness, such as Grounding meditation where you can refresh and reset with a visualization exercise to help settle the breath, body, and mind.
Focus meditation is where you tap into the moment and bring out the innate focus within. With the connecting mind and body meditation, you “observe while we tune into the body from head to toe”.
Russell Glass is the CEO of Headspace. He took to meditation himself after watching a talk by the founder of Headspace, Andy Puddicombe, and became CEO of the company in 2021.
“Workplace mental health continues to be a top three business priority, with employees and CEOs experiencing frequent levels of stress due to market uncertainty and growing workplace pressures,” according to Glass.
“In response, companies must not only ensure they have robust mental health and wellbeing programs in place but also that their leaders are tending to their own mental health, fostering open conversations with their teams.”
Headspace is free to install. The premium plan begins with $12.99/month.
Top features of Headspace
- The app comes with hundreds of exercise, sleep, and focus guides
- Keep yourself fit with cardio and workouts included in the app
- The “SOS” feature helps you cope with a panic attack.
- For mental rests, there are 2-3 minute mini-meditations included
- Keep a record of your meditation sessions
- Explore new topics daily to meditate
Calm: Take a Deep Breath
More than one-third of adults in the United States do not get enough sleep, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Also, around 1 in 5 have a mental health condition that ranges from mild to severe. Research suggests mindful meditation can promote good mental health and overall emotional well-being.
Developed in 2012 by Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith, the Calm app is available for download on desktop, iOS, and Android devices.
According to the company, the multi-award-winning app has more than 100 million downloads and over 1.5 million five-star reviews. Apart from meditations, the app provides breathing techniques, music, and bedtime stories for people who are tense, feel anxious, or want to improve the quality of their sleep.
“Mental health was something people didn’t really talk about until recently. Something is changing really dramatically. There’s a societal shift of people taking care of their minds and being more interested in sleep and self-care,” according to co-founder and co-CEO Smith.
An individual can choose from the following options — reduce anxiety, develop gratitude, increase happiness, improve performance, build self-esteem, reduce stress, and get better sleep. In addition to meditation, Calm has found application in restoring sleep.
The Calm app is free to install. However, its premium plans begin at $14.99/ month. $399.99-lifetime package will get you permanent access to premium features. With hundreds of hours of original audio content available in seven languages, Calm supports users in more than 190 countries.
Top features of the Calm app
- Sleep stories like Wonder with the voice of Matthew McConaughey and Blue Gold voiced by Stephen Fry, among others
- Meditation sessions sorted according to the duration: 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 minutes
- A 10-minute daily program to ease your mind
- Body stretching techniques and movements for relaxing the body
- More than 30 nature sounds and scenes to calm your mind
- Detailed Yoga lessons to guide you
A quick look at top meditation apps
- Best guided meditation apps: Breathe, Headspace
- Best meditation apps for sleep: Calm, Buddhify
- Best for Vedic meditation: Sattva
- Best meditation apps for breathing: iBreathe, Breathe+
- Best app for quick meditation: Simple Habit
- Best meditation apps for spirituality: Mindfulness with Petit BamBou, Waking Up
Best meditation apps on a budget: Oak, Meditation Studio
